When you have 4 kids at home, you don’t often get time to give individual attention to each. When the opportunity does arise, I like to try and do something a little bit special. Today, I only had Eleanor (11) and Siobhan (1.5) with me, so I decided to make the day about Eleanor.
We started by going to the mall; the girl likes to shop. We went to her favourite store, Old Navy, and we picked put some clothes. We got clothes for all the kids, but Eleanor may have gotten a couple extra items.
We got a little treat from New York Fries and a couple of Mrs. Fields’ cookies, and we were on our way home. It was in the car that I decided to let Eleanor do something I thought she would find really special.
Once home, I asked her to choose a recipe she would like to make, and make a list of the ingredients we would need to buy. She chose meatball noodle soup. Then I told her she could go to the grocery store by herself to get them; she was excited.
I got a couple texts while she was gone:
“How many 900ml beef broths?”
“Where do I find tomato paste?”
She returned home with everything she needed, and I had her read the instructions for the recipe before we started.
First on the agenda: A saucepan on medium high heat to heat the oil for the meatballs. I let Eleanor get started.
I guess because I have so much experience reading recipes, I thought those instructions were pretty basic. I stepped away for a few minutes to do something, and when I came back, Eleanor asked “How long do I heat the oil for?”
There was smoke curling above the pot, and I realized she hadn’t put the meatballs into the oil. I rushed over to remove the pot from the heat, but as I pulled it, flames licked up over the edges and we had ourselves a grease fire.
“How are we going to put this out?” I pondered aloud, and Eleanor suggested water. I explained that water would make it worse as I reached for the lid to the pot. I placed the lid over the flames, calmly, and went to turn off the fire alarm.
There was no damage, no-one was hurt, so we carried on and acknowledged the lesson to be learned from this experience.
Half an hour later, we were eating the delicious soup.
After dinner, Eleanor asked if she could start her own blog. Here is her first post: Eleanor Writes: Being The Oldest
When you only get individual time every so often, I guess you have to pack a lot of action into one day.
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